The Shadow of the World
by WinterOrchid99
Summary: Ever wonder how Peter first came to Neverland? What happened to his family, his home? Well, in this story, just how Peter came to be in the care of his dear guardian Tinker Bell is explored. But be forewarned, though we know Peter as a merry and puckish figure, his beginnings may not be quite so happy as his present might imply.


Shadow of the World

Outside she saw only a calm, beautiful night. The moon smiled down upon the dark, sleeping town; the fairy frowned glumly as she watched the sky from within the streetlamp. She sighed; she could not leave her cage quite yet; the hawk was still perched atop the lamp. The streets were mostly deserted by this time of night, and the shadows slunk along in hulking pools; however, there was one living person that yet moved. The gurgling and babbling noises floating up from the woman's arms drew the fairy's attention; the woman carried a baby; its burbling contentment also grasped the attention of one of the shadows. The dark, slinking mass turned in grim contemplation; it thought, and then it followed.

The woman was not aware of any cause for alarm; she was simply walking home after a long and exhausting day, and both she and her baby were ready to rest. The bundle of joy in question was no more aware of the present danger than its mother; nevertheless, it quieted and grew still. The fairy watched with growing concern as the woman slowly made her way towards where the fairy stood imprisoned inside the lamp. The hawk scratched at the lamp's metal cover, reminding the fairy of its presence. As if she could forget.

Much like the hawk outside the fairy's glass prison, the shadow could not yet quite reach the woman. The woman had not noticed anything amiss for almost half a block; however, as she crossed the street her expression grew wary. She was almost sure she'd heard a second pair of steps. The woman slowed a bit; the other steps did too, after just a moment long enough to be heard. The woman then quickened her pace; the slinking shadow did as well. As the woman walked even faster than before, a cold conclusion gnawed its way into her bones: she was being followed. She truly took in her situation for the first time; no witnesses walked the deserted streets, and no one waiting for her at home. She could not run; there was no one to hear a call for help; she had nothing valuable to drop on the ground to deter her pursuer. The only thing she could think to do was hide; thus, she ducked into the alley directly in front of the fairy.

The fairy watched in growing fear as the shadow followed the woman into the alley. Then, she noticed a cold glint in the shadow's gnarled grip. The fairy's eyes widened in horror when she realised what was now only barely concealed: the dark metal was the soulless eye of a gun. She'd never seen a gun before that day, but after an unforgettable encounter with a farmer that morning, its purpose was no longer foreign to her. She fluttered about frantically inside her prison, trying to figure out a way to warn the woman without being seen. It was the first rule for fairies, the most important rule of all: never be seen. She'd broken it twice before; her rewards had been this morning's aerial-dodging tactics lesson and her hungry avian companion. What would happen to her if she endangered herself now?

Desperation clogged the narrow alleyway. The phantom of a man whose life had slowly been drained, piece by bloody hope-stained piece, was driven towards the woman by a bleak mixture of instinct and vapid want. It wanted what she was, what she had. The mother wanted to live; the shadow, a life. The shadow seemed to stretch in the darkness of the alleyway and reached out with a ragged hand to catch the fleeing woman. It wheeled on her as it shoved her back to the wall. The wind was knocked out of her from the strength of the impact. The grip of the ashen creature before her tightened and she looked at it, gasping for air, with wide fearful eyes. The baby in her arms began to whimper.

"Gimme your purse, your jewelry, anythin' ya got," the shadow rasped.

The woman shook her head frantically back and forth, still struggling to breathe properly,

"I've- _gasp_ -got nothing.- _gasp_ -Nothing on me."

"Liar!" the shadow took on a thicker substance in its rage. "I saw where you come from. You's was walkin' from the nice side o' town. Now quit yer lyin' rich talk and gimme your purse!" The woman trembled as she struggled to remove her purse while holding her baby in one arm. She handed the small purse to the shadow; it shook the purse furiously; its emptiness only made the dark form more substantial.

"Fine then. The rich whore wants tuh lie, eh?" A sliver of moonlight glanced across its face in that moment and seared a chilling image onto the fairy's mind.

She could not be complacent any longer. There was only one thing more terrifying than the hawk outside: the obsidian grin that had carved itself into the shadow's rotting face. Rules and raptor be darned, she needed to do something! She tried lifting the cover of the lamp, but the immediate jab of a beak made her shut it again quickly. What was she to do? How could she distract the hawk in time to help the woman and her baby?

While the fairy was thinking frantically, the shadow's hulking form leaned forward to breathe rancid ash on the woman. She screwed up her nose, trying not to gag as it reached towards the infant bundled up in her arms.

"Well, if you've got nothing else of value, perhaps this juicy tidbit would do…"

The crack of the woman's hand against the cheek of the shadow left a tense silence in the air. The fairy didn't breathe; the hawk didn't move; the babe didn't cry; the woman didn't scream; the shadow hissed through a grin. The darkness pooled around it's twisted form in a display of hopeless fury. Eyes as empty as the purse at it's feet turned to drill into the woman's face. The woman's stinging hand rose shakily; the shadow's gun, without hesitation.

The second crack rang out, and the moon tore its gaze away. The fairy and baby screamed in tandem. The hawk flew away as quickly as it could into the night, terrified by the sudden cacophony. The shadow laughed as the woman fell to the wet pavement at its feet with a pained cry. Its original interest now subdued, shivering and bleeding onto the cobblestone alley, the shadow turned its lifeless eyes upon the final light that impeached upon its dark being. How many ways could it extinguish this light? Show it horror, show it greed; teach it cruelty, teach it to bleed; bleed it dry of all the hope and joy that time had drained from him….

Or he could just kill it.

Before it's hand could extend for the baby's wailing form more than an inch, the fairy-aura shining a blazing red-was upon it in all the grief-stricken fury she could enflame. She had seen the end of a life, the end of an _innocent_ life. What's more, the fairy had felt within every bit of her being that the woman who had fallen had been _her_ human. As the woman had been shot, the fairy had felt every ounce of pain as if it were her own. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, _that_ woman's laugh, that dear mother's first laugh, had brought the fairy into the world. It was she who had given the fairy life and joy and the wonder of flight.

And now, the woman to whom the fairy owed her very existence was painting the cobblestones with her lifeblood. The fairy did not even notice she was weeping as she took revenge on the monster that had done this. Her battle cry was more anguished and savage than you could ever believe.

She bit and clawed and bled every bit of shadowy flesh she could find. Her sharp fingers burrowed into its skin like needles and tore its flesh apart as she ripped her hands out again. The shadow cried out in agony; the fairy, in fury. Though small in size, she flew about with such violent precision that she may as well have been three times her size. Under the vicious barrage of attacks, the hulking shadow stumbled away from her blinding light in frantic disarray. The form which had once seemed so terrifying and substantial now oozed back into the darkness of the night. Only the bloody gashes that marred its crumbling face set it apart from the other shadows that wandered the shattered night.

The fairy flew to the woman's side as she gasped for air through the blood escaping her painted lips. The woman turned her head from the hiding moon to the fairy beside her, and for a moment, her eyes widened in childlike wonder. It broke the fairy's heart. The woman tore her eyes from the beautiful little creature before her to the infant wailing in her arms.

"H-hush, Peter. It-it'll be...alright, my little s-starcatcher." She shakily rubbed a pale hand over her son's back as she kept murmuring, "It'll be alright. It'll be alright." Finally she gasped in a horrible rattling breath and looked to the fairy. She smiled, just a little bittersweet smile and said,

"I promised… I'd take him… to the… stars, some-… day." With this last breath spent, the woman fell silent and the fairy fell to the ground. She shook and shivered, staring at nothing at all, completely incapable of processing what had just happened. Then it dawned, and the tears fell. A part of her that she'd never been aware of before had been noticeably extinguished. Left behind in its place was an aching hole, a chasm that did not remain empty for long. The fairy had never before felt such a consuming agony as she did in that moment. She cried to the sky and cursed the darkness, cursed her cowardice, cursed the world of man. It was only when another piercing wail joined her own that she remembered the life that the broken night had spared.

She looked up at the wiggling bundle in the dead woman's arms and opened her wings. She fluttered up to see the baby's face. Scrunched up and red-faced, the baby was almost startlingly alive. He cried for his mother to touch him, pat him, hold him again, but she was unable to do so now. In her place, the fairy caressed the soft, ruby cheeks and shushed the child. He slowly stopped crying and opened his eyes to look at the light in front of him. His bright brown eyes looked out at her with boundless innocence and youth. He was yet untouched, she realized. This child had not yet been stained by this shadowed world. And in that moment, the fairy decided he never would. The shadows wanted him to fill their hollowed hearts; the fairy only wanted him to fill his own. So, with a pinch of fairy dust and all the love her small body could contain, the fairy rose into the sky with the babe safe in her grasp, leaving the earth far behind. As she cleared the clouds and looked upon the beaming face of the moon, the fairy angled herself towards the second star on the right. The baby below her yawned in exhausted comfort. The fairy smiled, promising herself she would do all that she could to raise and protect this little boy. As he drifted off to sleep the fairy began to sing in her sweet bell-like voice,

" _Come to my home_ _where dreams are born, and time is never planned. With magic's ever spring, your young heart will fly on wings forever, in Never Never Land."_


End file.
